A Preliminary Study of Confusable Words in L2 Chinese Textbooks

The present study adopts a corpus-based method to investigate the effectiveness and reliability of the confusable word sets listed in the L2 Chinese textbooks. Through the quantitative analysis based on the interlanguage corpus, we have found that, among 134 sets of words listed in the textbooks, only 50 sets have met the criterion we had set for "confusable words". We hence provide a suggested word list based on the results of the analysis, a list of the sets that do not meet the criteria but are found in the corpus with more obvious mistaken usage, as well as a list of the sets that meet the criteria but are not the most typical ones. Through the preliminary research, it is hoped to provide teachers and textbooks editors with a more scientific method of selecting confusable words to improve the efficiency of teaching and learning.